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The Agent Runner

Out 23rd October 2014

British by birth, Muslim by descent and agnostic by conviction, Edward Henry Malik finds it difficult to explain why he feels such a strong allegiance to Britain, perhaps because he finds it difficult to define what it means to be British.

Ed is an MI6 agent-runner. For four years he has been running an agent codenamed Nightingale inside the ISI, Pakistan’s Hydra-headed spying agency. Then, in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden, Nightingale is unmasked and Ed’s world dramatically falls apart.

Dismissed from MI6 and with his reputation in tatters, Ed returns to his roots in the immigrant enclave of Whitechapel in London’s East End. He finds a job at a freight forwarding office and unexpectedly falls in love with the proprietor’s daughter. It seems as if he has finally found respite from his demons.

But you can’t escape your past. Ed knows too much and he has come to the attention of the Hidden Hand – Pakistan’s legendary spy of spies – Major-General Javid Aslam Khan.

From the teeming city of Lahore to the anarchic tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, with a plot to detonate the dirtiest bomb imaginable, The Agent Runner carves a dramatic arc across modern Pakistan and reaches a thunderous climax in the mountains of the Hindu Kush.